At least 80 people were killed and 18 others were seriously injured Thursday when a terrorist drove a large truck loaded with guns and hand grenades into a crowd that had gathered for a Bastille Day fireworks display in the southern French city of Nice.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but two sources, including a U.S. counterterrorism source who collects and monitors jihadist social media, told Fox News that accounts linked to ISIS were “celebratory” and their followers were told to use the hashtag “Nice”.

The death toll was confirmed by French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve early Friday morning. Earlier, French President Francois Hollande said that children were among the dead, and said his country was “under the threat of Islamic terrorism. We have to demonstrate absolute vigilance and show determination that is unfailing.”

Hollande also announced that he would extend France’s state of emergency by another three months, until Oct. 26. France has been on its highest state of alert since ISIS terrorists killed 130 people in Paris this past Nov. 13.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the truck driver had been “neutralized”, or killed by police, and an investigation would confirm whether he had acted alone. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced that it was opening an anti-terrorism investigation into the attack.

Sky News and the Nice-Matin newspaper reported that the driver was a 31-year-old Nice resident of Tunisian origin. No other details of his identity were immediately avaiable. Read the rest of this entry »

“The pictures are so heartbreaking, and it seems almost impious to comment on them.

But it strikes me — in the nineteenth century, “terrorism” was defined as the “propaganda of the deed,” meaning that you made your manifesto, you made your statement, by doing something — usually horrible, by killing people.

But those terrorists, a century and a half ago, could never have imagined how that would work in a day where the telecommunications are instant. That was just a non-official carrying an iPhone who could immediately show the world the deed.

And the other thing — the conjunction of one other horrible development — which is this terror organization that thrives, glorifies brutality. And what it does for them is the idea that you can terrorize your enemy, and you can recruit the more disturbed and sadistic people in the world who want to follow this into their own distorted promised land.

So it has two purposes, which is why it will continue. In the end, what was said ten, fifteen years ago, father 9/11: We have a choice. We have to fight them there, or we will have to fight them here. Obviously, it’s happening here.”